The world's largest drug maker says it will make job cuts in the Triangle just weeks after it acquired another drug firm with deep roots in the area.

Pfizer says it needs to eliminate close to 150 jobs in the Raleigh and Sanford areas following its takeover of the drug and vaccine maker Wyeth.

The job cuts in Sanford are particularly difficult because of that area's above average unemployment rate.

"Anything that happens to Pfizer now is going to be a blow to Sanford," Mayor Cornelia Olive said.

Pfizer's announcement of 70 jobs eliminated at its Sanford research and development facility was not the kind of economic news municipal officials wanted to hear.

"They pay good money and they've done research here that's lead to life saving vaccines," Olive said.

The company is also going to going to close its research facility at RTP, cutting another 70 jobs there.

Pfizer says the cuts were necessary following its merger with Wyeth.

"There was duplication," Kristen Neese, Pfizer's director of worldwide communication, said. "When the company merged three weeks ago, we had more than 20 research and development sites."

Pfizer also runs a vaccine manufacturing facility in Sanford, which the company will keep open.

"That's good news," Olive said. "At least there will still be hundreds of jobs available there."

The recession has been particularly brutal to the Sanford area, boosting the local unemployment rate close to 16 percent.

In the last six months, officials have begun to see that unemployment rate moderate, which is why the Pfizer job cuts hurt all the more.

"We have some industries that are hiring here," Olive said. "Red Wolf is adding employees, filter maker Trion is adding to its numbers, Caterpillar is gradually starting to open lines again and Pentair is starting to rehire."

Pfizer said although jobs will be lost in North Carolina as a result of the research consolidation, not everyone will be left unemployed.

"We hope to retain some of these colleagues through job transfers elsewhere," Neese explained.

Pfizer said the job cuts won't happen all at once. Representatives said the cuts will be phased in between 2010 and 2011.